# Alternatives to Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) > Source: https://theagentsindex.com/google-adk/alternatives (current datasheets, evidence-ranked) Candidates share the baseline category or are previously researched peers. Requirements, preserved strengths, explicit trade-offs and research coverage decide the order; paid tier does not. ## Shortlist ### 1. AgentsKit Composable MIT-licensed TypeScript packages for agent runtime, tools, memory, RAG and chat UI. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Writes code: yes — A bundled coder skill writes real multi-file TypeScript against scoped filesystem and allowlisted shell tools, so the agent you assemble authors code rather than snippets.](https://www.agentskit.io/docs/agents/skills/coder) - [Reviews code: yes — A codeReviewer persona ships with the skills package and reviews diffs for bugs, security and style in pull-request comment format; you host the review loop yourself.](https://www.agentskit.io/llms.txt) - [In your pipeline: yes — Eval results export as JUnit XML, Markdown and GitHub annotations so failures block pull requests, and recorded sessions replay in CI without network calls.](https://www.agentskit.io/docs/production/evals/ci) **Trade-offs against Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Ships it: partial — An allowlisted shell tool can run git and package-manager commands, so shipping is possible but you build the deploy path; the library itself does not deploy or open pull requests.](https://www.agentskit.io/docs/agents/skills/coder) - [Data residency: partial — Jurisdiction is yours to choose because nothing is hosted by the vendor, and the router can pin selection to a region, but no residency guarantee is published.](https://www.agentskit.io/docs/api/adapters/interfaces/RouterOptions) [View AgentsKit](https://theagentsindex.com/agentskit) ### 2. Agno Python SDK, open-source AgentOS runtime and hosted control plane for building and operating agents. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Writes code: yes — Ships a CodingTools toolkit whose documented job is editing files and running commands in a scoped project directory.](https://docs.agno.com/use-cases/coding-agents) - [Debugs and fixes: yes — Bug fixing is a documented pattern: reproduce, patch, rerun the failing tests.](https://docs.agno.com/use-cases/coding-agents) - [Reviews code: yes — Code review over a diff is one of the documented coding-agent patterns.](https://docs.agno.com/use-cases/coding-agents) **Trade-offs against Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Ships it: partial — Publishing is deliberately outside the default loop; commits, PRs and deploys must be exposed as separately gated tools.](https://docs.agno.com/use-cases/coding-agents) - [Agent permissions: partial — Runs are unattended unless a tool is marked for approval; then the run pauses in your database until an admin resolves it.](https://docs.agno.com/agent-os/approvals/overview) - [In your pipeline: no — The enumerated serving surfaces are REST, MCP in Claude/ChatGPT and chat apps; no pull-request or CI surface appears.](https://www.agno.com/) [View Agno](https://theagentsindex.com/agno) ### 3. LangChain Open source agent frameworks plus LangSmith, a hosted platform to trace, evaluate, deploy and govern agents. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Writes code: yes — The vendor ships dcode, a free open-source terminal coding agent that writes and runs code from a prompt; it is a separate package from the paid LangSmith platform.](https://www.langchain.com/dcode) - [Done-for-you service: partial — You run the software yourself on every self-serve plan; only Enterprise buyers get LangChain engineers, architectural guidance and team training alongside the product.](https://www.langchain.com/pricing) - [In your pipeline: yes — The vendor documents a GitHub Actions pipeline that runs tests and offline evals on a pull request, then promotes preview deployments to production through the control-plane API.](https://docs.langchain.com/langsmith/cicd-pipeline-example) **Trade-offs against Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Self-hosted: partial — The open source frameworks run anywhere, but self-hosting or hybrid-hosting the LangSmith platform on Kubernetes is an Enterprise-plan option; Developer and Plus are cloud-only.](https://www.langchain.com/pricing) - [Open source: partial — The frameworks and the dcode coding agent are MIT-licensed and free, while the LangSmith platform that carries the price, seats and governance is proprietary and hosted.](https://www.langchain.com/langchain) - [Bring your own key: partial — You can bring your own provider keys through the gateway on every plan, or buy inference as Gateway Credits, but Engine refuses your keys and bills its model use as compute units.](https://docs.langchain.com/langsmith/engine) [View LangChain](https://theagentsindex.com/langchain) ### 4. Pydantic AI Open-source Python agent framework from the Pydantic team, with a typed agent loop and swappable models. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [In your pipeline: yes — A pydantic-ai engine for GitHub Agentic Workflows runs your agent from a Markdown workflow file on issues, pull requests or a schedule, writing back through gh-aw safe outputs; the engine declares itself experimental to gh-aw.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/harness/gh-aw/) - [In a browser: yes — A browser chat interface ships in the package via Agent.to_web() or clai web, though the docs position it for local development and debugging rather than production use.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/guides/web/) **Trade-offs against Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Ships it: partial — There is no deployment feature; the Coder shell tool runs unrestricted commands that outlive the run, so an agent can execute deploy commands you allow, and the docs warn to sandbox untrusted work.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/harness/coder/) - [MCP server: partial — MCP is supported as a client: the MCP capability connects any MCP server's tools into your agent, and the CLI takes an mcpServers config file; the docs I read establish consumption, not your agent being queried as an MCP server.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/ai/capabilities/mcp/) - [Data residency: partial — The library holds nothing, so residency is yours. If you send telemetry to Logfire, you choose a US or EU region at signup; regions are strictly separated and migration between them is not available.](https://pydantic.dev/docs/logfire/manage/data-regions/) [View Pydantic AI](https://theagentsindex.com/pydantic-ai) ### 5. Letta Stateful agent harness, cloud and SDK for agents with persistent, git-versioned memory. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Writes code: yes — Agents edit and create files in your repository, including from GitHub issues and PRs.](https://docs.letta.com/platform/github-action/index.md) - [Debugs and fixes: yes — Vendor states coding agents debug failures and run test suites.](https://docs.letta.com/handbook/index.md) - [Reviews code: yes — Reviews diffs on demand or on every PR via the GitHub action's prompt input.](https://docs.letta.com/platform/github-action/index.md) **Trade-offs against Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Ships it: partial — Commits, pushes and opens pull requests; it cannot approve PRs and no deployment step is claimed.](https://docs.letta.com/platform/github-action/index.md) - [MCP server: no — MCP runs inbound only: Letta sessions consume stdio, HTTP and SSE MCP servers; no Letta MCP server is published.](https://docs.letta.com/agent-sdk/mcp/index.md) - [Audit log: no — No administrative audit log is published; the Enterprise list stops at RBAC, SSO, quotas and dedicated support.](https://docs.letta.com/pricing/index.md) [View Letta](https://theagentsindex.com/letta) ### 6. Mastra Open-source TypeScript framework for building AI agents, with a hosted platform for running and observing them. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Done-for-you service: partial — You run the software, but Mastra sells professional services (Concierge, forward-deployed engineering) and enterprise support covering planning, prototyping and workshops.](https://mastra.ai/terms-of-service) - [In a browser: yes — Studio is a hosted web UI for running agents, editing prompts, annotating traces and building datasets; it runs locally at port 4111 or deployed for the team.](https://mastra.ai/ai-agent-framework) - [How it meters: yes — Plan fee plus consumption metering: observability events, CPU hours, egress, memory tokens, retrieval storage and database rows all have per-unit overage rates. Not per seat.](https://mastra.ai/pricing) **Trade-offs against Google Agent Development Kit (ADK):** - [Data residency: partial — Self-hosted Enterprise keeps traces, prompts and outputs inside your own VPC; for the hosted platform the vendor publishes no region or jurisdiction.](https://mastra.ai/pricing) - [Getting out: partial — You own your data and can cancel any time, but retention is capped by plan (15 days to 6 months), backups are your responsibility and downgrading may delete data over the new limit.](https://mastra.ai/terms-of-service) [View Mastra](https://theagentsindex.com/mastra) ## Method Unknown data is never treated as a benefit or a trade-off. Featured placement is labelled but cannot alter recommendation order.